The rapid growth of magnet schools in the 1980s introduced the first widely adopted form of public school choice in the United States. Magnet-based choice is supported as a way to expand school choice for parents, bring innovation through specialty schools and programs, and promote voluntary forms of racial integration. Some contend that this form of public school choice is especially helpful to lower-income parents who are trapped in inferior inner-city schools, while others claim that magnet schools may worsen stratification among schools by family income. The study presented here used a large national data set to examine relationships between magnet-based school choice and income-based stratification in school districts. It did not find a difference between school districts with magnet-based school choice and school districts without school choice. Implications for other forms of school choice are discussed.
Reviews the theory of authentic assessment, arguing that assessment must begin with a defensible theory of academic competence and describing key principles and examples of authentic assessment. Also reviews issues contributing to current ferment in the field of testing and describes how authentic assessment fits into the larger testing reform movement. The conclusion examined implications of authentic assessment for school restructuring and state assessment policy."Authentic assessment" has attracted much attention since Archbald and Newmann (1988) argued that assessment must begin with a defensible theory of academic competence.1 Here and subsequently (Newmann & Archbald, in press) they contend that for assessment to be considered "authentic" it must measure performance on tasks that reflect meaningful forms of human accomplishment. While the term "authentic" invites a variety of interpretations, we tried to offer a careful definition of academic competence that could inspire student engagement in academic work and involve "transfer" to intelligent functioning in non-school activities. Such a conception of achievement has been conspicuously absent in the psychometrics underlying the development and use of standardized multiplechoice tests.In the last few years "authenticity" has been coupled with assessment and like other concepts of education reform (e.g., "empowerment," "restructuring," "school choice") has taken on multiple meanings. Authentic assessment has been I would like to thank Fred Newmann for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
High school mathematics and social studies teachers were studied to determine the influence of curriculum control policies on their sense of autonomy and job satisfaction. Control policies were found to have their largest effects on content decisions in mathematics. Nevertheless, teachers in all conditions studied reported relatively high degrees of personal control over both content and pedagogy. Further, there was little evidence that teachers felt less efficacious or satisfied about their jobs because of curriculum policy constraints.
This article analyzes the stratification critique of school choice. The stratification critique consists of several key claims, some supporting evidence, and a loose set of assumptions and inferences usually left implicit. Limitations of the critique include rarely treating stratification as a complex multidimensional phenomenon; insufficient recognition that stratification is widespread in school districts, whether or not they have school choice; and the idea that from a policy standpoint, the decision is not between school choice and an ideal nonstratified state. One must weigh the stratification consequences of different policies, and these consequences must be viewed in relation to other policy goals and values. This article argues for clearer terminology, better indexes, and more explicit comparative frames of references in theory and research on school choice and stratification.
The nontraditional doctorate is a relatively recent development in the long history of the doctoral degree. Understanding what makes a doctoral degree "nontraditional" requires describing its key features in relation to those of the traditional doctorate and embedding this analysis in a historical context.
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